Uri AvneryIt has always been a secret ambition of mine to have a
bagatz ruling bearing my name. Bagatz is the Hebrew acronym for
"High Court of Justice," the Israeli equivalent of a
constitutional court. It plays a very important role in Israeli public
life.

Having a groundbreaking Supreme Court decision named after you
confers a kind of immortality. Long after you are gone, lawyers quote
your case and refer to the judgment.

Take Roe vs. Wade, for example. Whenever abortion is debated in the
US, Roe vs. Wade (1973) comes up, though few remember who Jane Roe and
Henry Wade actually were. Now there is "Uri Avnery and Others vs.
the Knesset and the State of Israel," which came up this week
before the Israeli Supreme Court. It concerns the anti-boycott law
enacted by the Knesset.

A few hours after the law was passed, Gush Shalom and I personally
submitted to the court our application to annul it. We had prepared our
legal arguments well in advance. That's why it bears my name. The
applicants rather disrespectfully called "Others" are about a
dozen human rights organizations, both Jewish and Arab, who joined us.
After this ego-trip, let's get to the point.

The court session was rather unusual. Instead of the three justices
who normally deal with such applications, this time nine judges --
almost the full complement of the court -- were seated at the table.
Almost a dozen lawyers argued for the two sides. Among them was our own
Gabi Lasky, who opened the case for the applicants.

The judges were no passive listeners fighting boredom, as they
usually are. All nine judges intervened constantly, asking questions,
interjecting provocative remarks. They were clearly very interested.

The law does not outlaw boycotts as such. The original Captain
Charles Boycott would not have been involved.

Boycott was an agent of an absentee landlord in Ireland who evicted
tenants unable to pay their rent during the Irish famine of 1880.
Instead of resorting to violence against him, Irish leaders called on
their people to ostracize him. He was "boycotted" -- no one
spoke with him, worked for him, traded with him or even delivered his
mail. Pro-British volunteers were brought in to work for him, protected
by a thousand British soldiers. But soon "boycotting" became
widespread and entered the English language.

By now, of course, a boycott means a lot more than ostracizing an
individual. It is a major instrument of protest, intended to hurt the
object both morally and economically, much like an industrial strike.

In Israel, a number of boycotts are going on all the time. The
rabbis call on pious Jews to boycott shops, which sell non-kosher food
or hotels, which serve hot meals on Sabbath. Consumers upset by the cost
of food, boycotted cottage cheese -- an act that grew into the mass
social protest in the summer of 2011. No one was indignant. Until it
reached the settlements.

In 1997 Gush Shalom, the movement to which I belong declared the
first boycott of the settlements. We called upon Israelis to abstain
from buying goods produced by settlers in the occupied Palestinian
territories. This caused hardly a stir. When we called a press
conference, not a single Israeli journalist attended -- something I have
never experienced before or since. To facilitate the action, we
published a list of the enterprises located in the settlements. Much to
our surprise, tens of thousands of consumers asked for the list.
That's how the ball started rolling. We did not call for a boycott
of Israel. Quite the contrary, our main aim was to emphasize the
difference between Israel proper and the settlements.

While the government did everything possible to erase the Green
Line, we aimed at restoring it in the consciousness of the Israeli
public. We also aimed at hurting the settlements economically. The
government was working full-time to attract people to the settlements by
offering private villas to young couples who could not afford an
apartment in Israel proper, and lure local and foreign investors with
huge subsidies and tax reductions. The boycott was intended to
counteract these inducements.

We were also attracted by the very nature of a boycott: It is
democratic and non-violent. Anyone can implement it quietly in his or
her private life. The government decided that the best way to minimize
the damage was to ignore us. But when our initiative started to find
followers abroad, they became alarmed. Especially when the EU decided to
implement the provisions of its trade agreement with Israel. This
confers large benefits on Israeli exports, but excludes the settlements,
which are manifestly illegal under international law.

The Knesset reacted furiously and devoted a whole day to the
matter. (If I may be allowed another ego-trip: I decided to attend the
session. As a former member, I was seated with Rachel in the gallery of
honored guests. When a rightist speaker noticed us, he turned around
and, in a flagrant breach of parliamentary etiquette, pointed at us and
snarled: "There is the Royal Couple of the Left!") Abroad,
too, the boycott was initially aimed at the settlements. But, drawing on
the experience of the anti-apartheid struggle, it soon turned into a
general boycott of Israel. I do not support this. To my mind, it is
counter-productive, since it pushes the general population into the arms
of the settlers, under the tired old slogan: "All the world is
against us." The growing dimensions of the various boycotts could
no longer be ignored. The Israeli Right decided to act -- and it did so
in a very clever way.

It exploited the call to boycott Israel in order to outlaw the call
to boycott the settlements, which was the part that really upset it.
That is the essence of the law enacted two years ago.

The law does not punish individual boycotters. It punishes everyone
who publicly calls for a boycott. And what punishment! No prison terms,
which would have turned us into martyrs. The law says that any
individual who feels that they have been hurt by the boycott call can
sue the boycott-callers for unlimited damages, without having to prove
any damage at all. So can hundreds of others. This way the initiators of
a boycott can be condemned to pay millions of shekels.

Not just any boycott. Only boycotts aimed against institutions or
people connected with the State of Israel or -- here come the three
fateful Hebrew words: "A territory ruled by Israel." Clearly,
the whole legal edifice was constructed for these three words. The law
does not protect Israel. It protects the settlements. That is its sole
purpose. The dozens of questions rained down on our lawyers concerned
mainly this point.

Would we be satisfied with striking out these three words? (Good
question. Of course we would. But we could not say so, because our main
argument was that the law restricts freedom of speech. That applies to
the law as a whole.) Would we have opposed a law directed against the
Arab Boycott maintained against Israel during its early years? (The
circumstances were completely different.) Do we oppose the freedom of
speech of rabbis who prohibit the leasing of apartments to Arab
citizens? (That is not a boycott, but crass discrimination.) After hours
of debate, the court adjourned. Judgment will be given at some undefined
date. Probably there will be a majority and several minority decisions.
Will the court dare to strike out a law of the Knesset? That would
demand real courage. I would not be surprised if the majority decides to
leave the law as it is, but strike out the words concerning the
settlements.

Otherwise, it will be another step toward turning Israel into a
state of the settlers, by the settlers and for the settlers. There are
examples for this in history. The eminent British historian Arnold
Toynbee -- a favorite of mine -- once composed a list of countries which
were taken over by the inhabitants of their border regions, who as a
rule are hardier and more fanatical than the spoiled inhabitants of the
center. For example, the Prussians, then the inhabitants of a remote
border region, took over half of Germany, and then the rest. Savoy, a
borderland, created modern Italy.

Whatever the outcome, the decision in the case of "Uri Avnery
and Others vs. the State of Israel" will be quoted for a long time.
Some satisfaction, at least.